T61 - Accessing the recovery parition?

Hi guys,

for some reason i decided to see what the performance was like in WindowsXP on my gfs new T61 (didnt want to touch mine! lol) so i just stuck XP disc in and installed it (with the help of the guides here)... OK, so it was VERY quick, but women being women didnt want XP cos it "didnt look at nice as vista"....

Now the problem i have (and i dont wonna tell her yet) is that pressing the blue button at start up doesnt take me into hte recovery console like mine does..... how can i reload her laptop with the recovery partition when ive reinstalled the primary o/s ?

Cheers guys!!!!
Will

 

Good question. I was about to ask the same thing. I formatted my c: drive and installed XP, but kept the Lenovo recovery partition. But now when I press the ThinkVantage button at startup, it doesn't do anything. No matter what I do, I cannot restore the computer to its original status.

 

there must be a way! what if your system totally died, and u HAD to use the partition.........

anyone have any ideas?

 

Kryptonic

Hi. Yeah, that's something that interests me as well. Now if I remember correctly, about a week or two ago, I think it was Hypertropy mentioned (and not in Stallen's guide, btw) that if you do a clean install, all the while keeping the original recovery partition, you cannot access the recovery partition afterwards using the blue ThinkVantage button. Nor can you even restore it.

It's gone. Kaput! Forever. Why, I've no idea. Something about a boot loader getting corrupted.

It seems you'd have been better off deleting both partitions at the outset. That way, I believe it is possible to restore both partitions later (if you wish) using Lenovo's rescue disks.

I was initially going to keep my recovery partition too while doing the clean install, but now I think it's a better idea to format everything, then install the os, having kissed the recovery partition goodbye, which I believe, as I mentioned above, you can restore later from the rescue disks with all the rest of the factory bloatware.

I have not tested this btw, so what I'm telling you is just what I remember reading on these forums.

Not sure if I've actually answered your qn, but just thought I'd share that info in case it helps others.

 

lol, im in for it now!!!! lol

where would i get the recovery discs you talk about from? Neither mine or the misses laptops came with any discs which is.... interesting, as my Dell came with more discs than you can shake a stick at!

 

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't like that bit of info. Just as well it was your g/f's laptop and not yours!

As for the rescue disks, you will need to call lenovo and ask for them to be sent to you. I'm not sure if there's a charge or not.

Of course, the interesting thing is will you be able to create a new recovery partition since the initial one has been, I think, corrupted. I'm sure you will but I am curious as to the outcome.

 

bahhh :-( lol

ooooo well, looks like my curiosity isnt only gonna give me ear ache in the morning, but its also gonna cost me money!!!!

cheers for the help guys

 

You could've made the recovery disks before formatting the factory OS. But I didn't because I thought I would just keep the partition and not need them.

I believe Lenovo charges $45 for an OS cd. But that might be the actual OS, not just a recovery disk.